Wedding

How I Asked My Bridal Party

I’m so excited to share all the details on how I asked my bridal party last month when I hosted a surprise ‘Will You Be My Bridesmaid?’ brunch at Merrimon Wynne for all of my ‘sweetest’ girls (hence the berry theme)! You can read more about it on Style Me Pretty but I couldn’t wait to share the scoop right here too…. especially after I received the photo gallery that Megan Kerns Photography sent over.

First of all, I had thought for months about how I was going to ask my sisters and best friends to be bridesmaids in our wedding. I also knew that I wanted to ask my flower girls in a special way. I get really emotional with these sort of things and I wanted it to be really special. I had seen ideas of gifts to send or ways to ask individually, but ultimately, I hoped to find a time that worked for everyone where I could throw one big brunch party to celebrate them. Surprisingly, I found a date that worked for everyone where I invited them to a “summer brunch” and I immediately reached out to my wedding planner, Stephanie Scholl Events, to help plan, style and coordinate the day!

As soon as I settled on a promising date for everyone, I met with Stephanie Scholl Events and told her about the theme and vision I had in mind. I envisioned a berry themed brunch because, after all, it was a party thrown for all of the ‘sweetest’ ladies in my life. When I think about themes for any sort of event, I always gravitate toward my favorite colors.. blues, greys, teal, so, it wasn’t very hard to think of what the theme and look would be. Luckily, Raleigh has some pretty talented vendors for occasions like these and Stephanie Scholl Events was able to bring the vision to life so perfectly! I sent out an invitation that invited them to a “summer brunch” and made sure not to make it obvious.

At 11:00 on the morning of the brunch, each bridesmaid and flower girl arrived to the house (by this time, some of them were pretty suspicious of why they were there) and I could hardly contain my excitement! This was one of the first times where I had all of my closest women in my life in one spot and the feeling was indescribable! We sipped on delicious drinks made at a mimosa and berry bar while catching up with each other as we waited for the rest of the girls to arrive. As soon as everyone arrived to the house, we sat down at the table and I gave each girl their gift, a watercolor “Will You Be My Bridesmaid?” print by Sage Paper Co., and a handwritten note complete with all the feels! I gave a toast about why we were all there and it didn’t take long before the room was filled with tears. Some of these girls I had known since college, high school, and some my entire life, but I couldn’t get over how wonderful it felt to have them all there together.

The baskets for each bridesmaid were filled with cookies by Oak City Cookies decorated with our wedding date, a bottle of Speak Wines, and a bridesmaid emergency kit from Pinch Provisions! It also included a pair of Moon and Lola earrings, a favorite candle of mine (hello, Capri Blue Candles), and a cosmetic pouch from Paper Source! My two flower girls felt like princesses in their flower crowns and they were too cute exploring the house in their matching outfits they showed up in that morning! One of them asked why there weren’t any boys invited to this wedding, thinking that was the actual wedding, haha!

We ate the most delicious brunch by Belle’s Catering, complete with a biscuit bar, mini chicken and waffles, berry parfaits, and mini quiches. We finished off the meal with dessert by one of my all-time favorite Raleigh bakeries, The Cupcake Shoppe. I’m talking lavender French macarons, mini blackberry chocolate mousse tarts, vanilla bean cheesecake pops, and mini blackberry cupcakes. It was berry dessert heaven! The room was absolutely magical and even more beautiful than I envisioned it would be. The style had a simplistic but elegant feel with neutral and classic furniture rentals by Cottage Luxe and berry branches intertwined with gorgeous florals by Serendipity Designs. Although the décor was beautiful and just my style, the house was filled with SO much love and that made it so special. In fact, each aspect of the entire day was so special and it got me very excited for the next 10 months leading up to the wedding. Thankfully, I have a pretty amazing photographer friend and sorority sister, Megan Kerns Photography, who was there to capture the entire morning!

Vendors:

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Wedding

08.12.16

Engagement Photos Part 1

I am SO excited for today! First, for the obvious reasons, it is Friday. Also, I am seeing the same girls I saw for my very first concert back in ’98… Dixie Chicks! I saw them with my dad back when they opened up for Travis Tritt and Diamond Rio a long, long time ago when we lived in Richmond. They have always been high up on my list of favorite artists. Secondly, today I’m sharing Part 1 of our engagement photos shot by Jake and Heather. We took these photos back in June after meeting with our wedding venue and planner down in Charleston one night. I love how they turned out! Wait until you see Part 2 though.. 🙂

Last but not least, today I’m introducing myself over on Style Me Pretty as their newest Blogger Bride!!!!?! They reached out back in December (can’t believe it has been so long since TJ and I have been engaged!) and asked me if I would share our wedding planning journey on SMP over the course of the next year. Style Me Pretty is easily one of my top 3 blogs to follow. I just love it and am so honored to be able to share all the details of our wedding on one of my favorite blogs around. I hope y’all will follow along while I share my tips/advice/deets of planning our special day! I absolutely cannot wait to marry the love of my life!

Photography: Jake + Heather || Hair/Make-up: Meg Workman || See more on: Style Me Pretty || Earrings: Kendra Scott

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The Carolinas

05.04.16

Favorite Things To Do in Hilton Head in 48 Hours

Hilton Head Island is one of my favorite places to go for a relaxing mini vacation. It has everything you need – good food, live music, pretty beaches, shopping, outdoor sports, and much more. It doesn’t have too much which is what I need when I crave relaxation rather than a crazy weekend. We were so excited to be able to spend last weekend there with two of our friends and I wanted to share a list of my personal favorite places to eat and things to do for those of you who might be planning a trip there soon.

Restaurants:

A Lowcountry Backyard || This tiny little restaurant right off of Palmetto Bay Rd. is a hidden gem. I’ve never visited this island without going here to grab a bite to eat out in their “backyard”. They have a cute outdoor patio area with a gigantic umbrella covering the entire seating area, easy-going music playing, mini waterfalls, and the nicest staff to make for the best atmosphere. They have some of the best grits I’ve ever tasted and you can’t go wrong with anything on their menu for brunch or dinner!

Sea Shack || A hole in the wall type place known as Hilton Head’s best kept seafood secret and I couldn’t agree more! If you want a plate of the best popcorn shrimp (or any fried seafood for that matter) slaw, and hushpuppies – this is your place! TJ and I like to get it to-go when we’re staying at a nicer hotel and head back to the hotel and eat because there is very limited seating. You’ll likely find a long line though so make sure you get there early!

Frosty Frog || Your go-to spot for frozen drinks of every flavor you can imagine. I was very impressed with their food too! They have some delicious pizzas and wraps. The majority of the restaurant is outdoors and they will frequently have live music plus they have a nice bar area in the sand. I would recommend this spot for drinks after dinner or for a very casual non-seafood dinner.

Salty Dog Cafe || This is definitely one of the most popular places on the island and I mainly like it because of the area it is located. There is normally a fun event going on over the summer weekends in Sea Pines and after dinner you can watch the sunset over the water at Harbour Town.

Captain Woody’s || This is another good spot to go after dinner for drinks and music out on the patio. They have very good drink specials, great bands playing, and some amazing key lime pie!

Annie O’s || If you want some southern, lowcountry food in a very casual setting, this is your place. It is very reasonably priced and delicious!

Activities:

Biking around HHI || I always love exploring via bikes and I make an effort to add this into my beach weekends whenever possible. There are a bunch of businesses that rent out bikes but here are a couple to check out: Hilton Head Bicycle Company and The Bike Doctor. Most of the resorts have bike rentals as well.

Kayaking || Kayak Hilton Head

Nothing… Does that count? || Honestly, the best part of this place and what makes it special is how relaxing and peaceful it can be. I love sitting by the pool or beach with a frozen drink, especially from The Westin!

We also decided to use TJ’s Christmas present from last year, a Go Pro, and made a little video of the weekend. Check it out here and be on the look out for more travel videos to come! [You can subscribe here.]

If you have any other HHI favorite restaurants or things to do, leave them in the comments!

xo, Shelby

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Wedding

12.21.15

Our Engagement + Happy Birthday TJ

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Today is my best friend and fiancé’s birthday! Yes, I said fiancé and it still feels so unreal! I wanted to take a moment to share a blog post different than the usual ones on here and share how special this guy in my life for (almost) 6 years is. This past Saturday, he completely surprised me with a proposal and every moment of it was so “TJ”.

Before I get into the details, I want to wish TJ the happiest birthday! December of 2009 was when he first asked me to be his girlfriend and that day completely changed my life. His personality makes people smile, his presence makes everyone around him happier, his selflessness makes me want to be a better person, and his love and sweetness makes me feel so blessed to have such a wonderful person be my other half. I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life with anyone else and I definitely can’t wait to eat birthday sushi tonight!

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The Proposal

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On Saturday morning, we were getting ready to go to our friend, Tyler’s, birthday lunch at Raleigh Beer Garden. When we got into the car to go, TJ asked me to play some tunes on Spotify, which was typical, but only this time he requested a playlist called “Us” that he had put together that morning. We started listening to all of the songs that reminded me of “us”. He then told me that we had a few stops to make before going to lunch. We stopped by the place we met, the place where we had our first kiss, and multiple other places where we had special moments over the past 6 years. He had something thoughtful and sweet to share along each step and I tried hard to hold back tears but in the parking lot of my old sorority’s house, I needed some tissues. The reason we met was because our friend set us up for one of my sorority’s semiformal events soon after I had joined Delta Gamma at NC State. It was the best date I ever had and I couldn’t believe how well we hit it off!

After we walked up to the bell tower, he asked me to marry him and I cried but said YES! He had set up some old photos of us, flowers, champagne, and glasses. He had asked two of our best friends to take some photos from underneath a bench behind the bell tower and am so thankful they were able to capture these moments! I honestly never even saw them until after it happened… I was just so surprised about what was going on.

That wasn’t all though. We proceeded with our plan of going to eat lunch at Raleigh Beer Garden but TJ had told this plan to like 30 of our family members and friends weeks ago and they ALL were there when we showed up! It was such a perfect afternoon of catching up with all of my closest friends, some of who drove from other sides of the state. It was so perfect and thoughtful!

Let the planning begin! …Maybe after the holidays. I still have yet to finish start my Christmas shopping.

xo, Shelby

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Holidays

11.01.15

Halloween Chipotle Costume DIY

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Happy Halloween, everyone!

This year, I decided to be something that is near and dear to my heart, something that is a constant in my life… and that is a Chipotle bowl. I had not seen a single Chipotle bowl costume before so I had to think hard about how this would work. I didn’t even know if it would work but I was very pleased with how it turned out! I actually showed a picture of the costume to an employee at Chipotle today and they gave us our entire meal for free!

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How to make a Chipotle Bowl Costume

What you’ll need:

Newsprint Paper, Flour, and Water = Paper Mache materials

36” balloon

Green Tissue Paper (for the lettuce)

Foam cubes (for the tomatoes)

Red paint

Yellow Paper Crinkles (for the cheese)

Cardboard

Glue gun

Foil (if you want a fork)

Scissors

Steps:

1. Blow up the 36” balloon.

2. In a large bowl, mix flour and water together to make a thick paper mache mixture. Dip a strip of the newsprint paper (which you can find at the craft store) in the mixture and start applying on half of the balloon. Leave an opening at the bottom where your legs will go and you will want to have about 4 layers of paper at the end. For mine, it took a day to dry. Once dry, pop the balloon.

3. Cut a piece of cardboard shaped like the front of the “bowl” (similar to a crescent moon shape) and this will be the platform for all of the lettuce, cheese, and tomatoes.

4. Ball each piece of green tissue paper up so that it has a lot of wrinkles and gently unwrinkle it to make it look like lettuce. Glue each piece of tissue paper to the top of the cardboard.

5. Paint a few foam blocks (or really anything small and block-shaped) red and let dry. Glue those on top of the lettuce. Once this is done, glue the big piece of cardboard on top of the bowl.

6. Sprinkle some yellow paper crinkles on top of the bowl to add some cheese.

7. Glue a piece of ribbon on the back sides of the bowl to make the straps.

8. Print a Chipotle logo out to glue on the front of the bowl.

Extra: You can glue a piece of the green tissue paper to a headband to add some cuteness to the costume. If you want to add a fork, cut a piece of cardboard out the shape of the end of a fork and wrap foil around it. Glue the fork to the back of the bowl.

That’s all! This costume was fairly simple. It did get quite messy when trying to do the paper mache part but it was worth it. Let me know in the comments if you have any questions at all!

xo, Shelby

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Travel

06.04.15

Girls Weekend in Savannah

Do you have a city that just feels right when you’re staying there? A city that when you visit you feel comfortable and almost like you’re at home? That is how I feel about Savannah, Georgia. Last weekend was my second time visiting this charming, spanish moss covered city and it was such a great time. Warning: This is going to be a heavy-worded post so if you just want a quick list of favorite places, scroll down to the very bottom!

Each year, my close friends from high school plan a girls weekend trip somewhere. We chose Savannah this year because only a couple of us had visited prior to this. Basically, I had the best time. The first time I stayed there (about a year ago), we stayed in a beautiful pink row house. This time, we stayed in a spacious 2 bedroom condo. An awesome part about Savannah is how you can visit and not move your car the entire time. You walk literally everywhere which is perfect for making up for all the amazing food you eat and drinks you drink.

I’ll give a recap on what went down each day:

Friday
Since we arrived so late on Thursday night, we didn’t really do anything until Friday morning. We woke up, walked to B. Matthew’s for brunch, and had a delicious meal before we started our explorations. B. Matthews was so good and the atmosphere was perfect… not too fancy but still charming. We made a reservation the day before so I would definitely suggest doing that if you plan on going. Their breakfast sandwich was on the best toast of my life.

After eating at B. Matthew’s, we walked all around town just exploring and taking a lot of photos on cobblestone streets. After a few hours of walking and shopping, it was time to eat again. I’m going to go ahead and let you know that this trip consisted of a lot of eating. We ate lunch at Moon River Brewing which had a really cool patio outside with music playing. I’m normally not a huge beer fan but I really liked their beer called Wild Wacky Wit. It was light, refreshing, and citrus-y. I’d highly recommend this place too.

By the time we were done with lunch, we were all pretty exhausted from walking so we walked back to the our condo for a quick nap. We rested and then got all dressed up for the night. We walked to The Cotton Sail Hotel which had a rooftop bar called Top Deck. We all had a drink and just talked a lot while taking in the awesome view overlooking the river and bridge.

We finally decided to walk to where we were eating a late dinner – Chive. Chive is a seafood “lounge” which was interesting. I had never really been to such a glamorous restaurant. There were gold chandeliers, velvet pillows, marble countertops, sequins, and an overall Great Gatsby-themed environment. I had crab stuffed flounder on top of some delicious cheesey orzo.
After dinner, we walked over to this area known as City Market which includes a bunch of restaurants, bars, entertainment, and shops. There was always outdoor live music being played in this area which I really liked. We ordered some Wet Willies drinks (might I suggest Miami Vice) and sat on the big benches circling the oak trees to figure out our next move. There was a big tree-house looking bar called Treehouse which we decided to venture into. We ended up hanging out there for a while, did some dancing, and then walked home for the night.

Saturday

One of my favorite places from my very first Savannah trip was this little hole-in-the-wall breakfast place called Clary’s Cafe. We didn’t wake up quite as early this morning so the girls who did walked to Clary’s Cafe and brought back food for us. If you ever go here, you HAVE to try their bacon biscuits. We later walked down River Street, did some shopping, bought a selfie stick (necessary), and walked into Dockside Seafood. We then headed back over to City Market where there were a lot of different types of music going on… from live country music to the local hip-hop radio station. We met a bunch of interesting people during this time. It was soon time for our Savannah Slow Ride tour. This was SO awesome. We pedaled around the city and stopped at 3 different bars. My friend hooked her phone up to the speakers and was on the request line so I requested quite a few good ones. After the dinner, we stopped by Treehouse again and ate at B&D Burgers. Other than the Savannah Slow Ride, this was probably my favorite spot. They had a huge outdoor area with cornhole boards, live music, and a big screen projected on a wall. The band was playing some really good country songs and we all just danced the entire time. It was the best time. Also, the burgers there were quite exquisite.

Overall, I loved every place we went but I’ll provide a list of favorites for those thinking about visiting Savannah in the near future. This is a list including places from both trips I loved. Also, I would LOVE to hear any other suggestions of places where I haven’t been!

Favorite Recommendations
B&D Burgers
Savannah Slow Ride and Hearse Ghost Tours
Forsyth Park
B. Matthew’s
City Market
Leopold’s Icecream
Top Deck
Moon River Brewing
Chive
Clary’s Cafe

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Travel

06.02.15

Wrightsville Beach Bachelorette Weekend

A couple weekends ago, I went to Wrightsville Beach to celebrate my friend Sara’s bachelorette weekend. I’m her Maid of Honor so I also had the fun opportunity of planning most of it! I’ve always loved planning parties and decorating so I had a lot of fun finding cute decor at reasonable prices and scoping out good restaurants and a condo for us to stay in. I figured I would give y’all a basic timeline of the how the weekend went incase you also happen to be planning a bachelorette or girl’s weekend in Wrightsville Beach.

Friday

On Friday, we all left Raleigh in the middle of the day to head to Wilmington. We stopped at the store to pick up some yummy drinks and made our way to our oceanfront condo. The condo couldn’t have been at a better location. It was just the right size for 7 of us too! We immediately unpacked the party supplies including some gold ‘BRIDE’ balloons, a pink tassel banner, cabana boy drink markers (loved these), homemade confetti (I just cut tissue paper into small squares), and so much more. We waited for everyone to arrive, gave the bride her ‘bride-to-be’ sash, gave the girls their favor boxes and started the celebrations early. For dinner, we walked over to Tower 7, a local Mexican joint, where we had some amazing quesadillas, margs, queso, and more.As for the “theme” of the weekend, we chose to do a fun beach theme since we, ya know, were at the beach. Inside the favor boxes were inflatable innertubes, mini sunscreens, little wine bottles, and snacks.

gold ‘BRIDE’ balloons || Favor Boxes

Dinner ended pretty late (Tower 7 didn’t take reservations) , so we then played some games with the bride and gave her a “honeymoon bag”, which was this extra-large tote bag personalized with her future name embroidered. Everyone brought something that Sara could bring along with her on her honeymoon such as a swimsuit cover-up, beachy jewelry, a donut float, selfie stick (also a highlight of this weekend), some cute jammies, etc. She guessed who gave her what for her honeymoon. We also played the guess-who-gave-which-panties game that night which was fun!

Saturday

Saturday was a full-on beach day. We blew up some of the floats (in the favor boxes), got the tunes cranking, and made our way out to the beach for hours on end. The weather was absolutely perfect and it was nice being able to just relax in the ocean on our floats all in a circle. Luckily, our condo was in such a good location, some of the girls walked over the Trolly Stop for a quick bite to eat at lunchtime so we wouldn’t lose our beach spot. In the evening, we started getting ready for dinner at Bluewater Grill. I made reservations almost a week before so luckily we got the most prime waterfront table outside overlooking yachts and the sunset. The food was to die for, seriously! Of course, we brought along our little cabana boy drink markers.

After dinner, we went back to the condo to give Sara a surprise scrapbook we all made for her. We played some more games before we went to a few beach bars which were only like 100 feet from our place! Red Dogs and Jerry Allens were two we stopped at. The convenience of not having to not move the car hardly at all was perfect. It was awesome and made for a fun night!

cupcakes via The Cupcake Shoppe

Well, I hope you gathered some ideas for your own girls weekend or bachelorette party! Thanks for stopping by PITP.

Don’t forget to enter to win Karen Walker sunglasses and a Karen Walker bag.

xo, Shelby

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